Escapist
by TerraZeal
Summary: Future!Verse. Chris, Wyatt, and Melinda attempt to vanquish what they think is a demon. It turns out to be a trickster goddess and they have their hands more full than they thought. Not-quite-femmeslash.


_**Author's Note: **My first Charmed fic in a long while. I was inspired by waking up early enough to catch a re-run involving Chris and the Charmed Ones taking on the powers of goddesses to defeat godlike creatures. Yeah, that episode. Semi-renewed my desire to write Charmed fanfiction. Chris, Wyatt, and Melinda are the main characters here, as opposed to the Charmed Ones. This takes place in the future (the good one) and the siblings are attempting to vanquish what they think is a demoness with a naughty sense of humor. Not-quite-femmeslash mentioned. Witch-trick from Discworld mentioned, even though this isn't QUITE a crossover with anything. I said not QUITE. There is SOME crossover to another CW show that you'll get if you've watched that show too. Song pre-fic belongs to Nightwish._

_**Escapist**_

_A nightingale in a golden cage  
>That's me locked inside reality's maze...<em>

_This is who I am  
>Escapist<br>Paradise Seeker  
>Farewell, time to fly<br>Out of sight  
>Out of time<br>Away from all lies..._

Melinda Halliwell threw the last bit of herb into the vanquishing potion she was making. Her brothers were likely off not doing anything helpful at all. Leave it all to the only female witch in the house! As if she belonged in a kitchen! How sexist. Melinda sighed and started bottling the potion into several bottles.

According to Wyatt, the demon they had tried vanquishing appeared immune to the brothers' powers. As if they were all powerful. Wyatt had appeared seriously offended when he'd tried to stab the demon with Excalibur and she had just pulled the sword out, and laughed at him. So Melinda was going for the tried-and-true method of using a vanquishing potion. They had the demon's blood on Wyatt's sword, so it wasn't a problem getting any of the demon's blood.

Chris finally entered the kitchen. "Did you finish the potions? This bitch is likely out there terrorizing people as we speak! You can't spend all day on it, you know." Melinda shot her elder brother a glare.

"Why don't YOU make the potion next time, then, if you're so good?" She shot back at him.

Chris threw up his hands. "FINE! As long as we don't have to sit around watching innocents die."

Melinda rolled her eyes. "For a demon, she isn't exactly as murderous as most. She hasn't actually killed anyone, so not a single innocent has died due to my 'slow potion making' skills."

"That is odd...I have been wondering about that. She doesn't seem to be actually HURTING anyone. At least not in a lasting manner. Just...I dunno, harassing them. Maybe we should check the Book of Shadows...there might be a thing in there about demons that don't kill people, but just mess with them."

Melinda shook her head. "No. All demons kill innocents. Its their modus operandi or something. I don't think this thing is a demon. At least, I won't believe she is until she kills someone."

"Its a demon. A powerful one. It has to be." This from Wyatt, who had finally decided to grace them with his presence. "It shrugged off my sword like it was being stabbed with a wet napkin."

Melinda sighed in frustration. Her brothers were completely insufferable sometimes! They refused to believe something until they saw it with their own eyes. MEN! "You guys can sit here and talk about ways to vanquish a demon that's invulnerable to Excalibur, and all your other powers, while I go check the Book. I'm also going to call mom. I know she and dad went on vacation, but maybe she's had experience with a thing like this."

Chris just watched Melinda stalk off upstairs. She could be so damn stubborn sometimes. He gathered up a few vanquishing potions and turned to Wyatt, who was still peering at his sword as if it had gone out of its way to offend him.

"Dude, its a piece of metal. Its not going to answer you, no matter how much you glare at it. Just get some potions and lets go."

Wyatt sighed in frustration, but did as Chris said and grabbed some potions. "Maybe we should ask Prue for some help. Maybe Melinda is right and its not a demon. She's a witch/cupid halfbreed, like we're witch/whitelighter halfbreeds, so she has powers we don't."

"No. Lets just go and kill this thing. If we do that, we'll be proving Melinda at least partially right." Chris orbed away, presumably to where they had last seen the demon.

Wyatt sensed his brother, and orbed to him, not wanting to go to the wrong place. He found himself beside Chris in an abandoned warehouse.

"Well, Chris, is she here?"

"No, it appears she's moved on somewhere else. We have her blood on your sword. Lets just scry for her so we can kill her and get back home."

Wyatt held out his sword, letting Chris use a scrying crystal to scrape off a bit of blood. The warehouse was completely abandoned, so using magic in it didn't seem to be an issue. Chris pulled a map out of his jacket pocket and held the chained crystal above it. The crystal started swaying, before quickly settling on a particular spot. Blood was more powerful than just trying to use hair or clothing to find something or someone.

"There. She's...at a carnival? What? Some weirdass demon if you ask me."

Wyatt shrugged. "Maybe she wants to ride the rides?"

Chris glared at him. "Somehow I doubt that. There are plenty of innocents at carnivals. Most of them being children. I think our demon bitch has a taste for children." Chris shot one last glare at Wyatt before orbing away, presumably to the carnival in question.

Why did everything think he was stupid? Wyatt was a little confused. He was the most powerful witch in the world...he sighed and orbed to Chris again. Despite being the younger brother, Chris appeared to be leading this chase for the demon.

"Well, okay, we're at the carnival. Oh, funnel cakes!" Wyatt started to head for the funnel cake stand, only to have Chris grab his shirt collar.

"We're not here to EAT, we're here to stop a demon from eating. If I were a demon, where would I go?" Chris looked thoughtful.

"Chris, a few people are giving you odd looks. I think they believe you're crazy. Maybe we should go over here?" Wyatt pointed to an area that was devoid of any other patrons.

Chris realized WHY there were no other patrons. "This stinks. Literally. The one free place here, and its the OUTHOUSE! I hate you so much."

"You love me and you know it. Shut and up keep scrying for her. I'll sense the area for demonic activity." Wyatt closed his eyes and did that whitelighter sensing thing. Chris could do it too, but his witch powers were stronger than his whitelighter powers.

He'd picked up a carnival map when he'd entered. He held the scrying crystal above the carnival map. It swayed and circled the map, before landing on a dot. Chris groaned.

"The demon is in the House of Mirrors. Of course. What BETTER place to find confused children?"

Melinda orbed in next to them. "Well? Boys? What did you find out? I was looking at the Book, and it didn't have anything matching her description in it. At least, no demons." She gave Wyatt a glare, which he forgot why he'd earned it.

"ANYWAY, forgetting you boys' stupidity, the thing you found isn't a demon. And it isn't evil. Just...mischievous. Reading several entries in the Book about such creatures, I think its a trickster. A...demi-god thing that just likes to play rather nasty jokes on people."

Melinda ran a hand through her dyed, firetruck red hair. "From what I can gather, the only ones in America are Coyote and Raven. Coyote is always portrayed as male. The Book portrayed Raven as female. They're native american gods or goddesses usually benevolent and Raven was even responsible for creating the world, according to the myths."

Chris raised an eyebrow at Melinda. "So, in San Francisco, we have a native american goddess going around playing nasty pranks on people? For a someone who supposedly created the world and her own people, she sure is being nasty. Also, I saw her. She doesn't look like a native american."

Melinda held up a hand, to get Chris to stop talking. "She's a goddess and a trickster. Tricksters are, above all things, shapeshifters. They have a 'default' form that they assume when they're killed or whatever, but what she looks like doesn't matter one bit."

Wyatt finally decided to speak, after thinking about what Melinda had said for a bit. "So how do we kill these things?"

"I was reading a cheesy book by some guy named Carver Edlund that said you had to stab them in the heart with a wooden stake dipped in the blood of one of their victims. But Raven hasn't killed anyone. So how do we get the blood of a victim when she hasn't killed anyone?"

"You read Carver Edlund? You realize that guy is awful and a hack, right?" Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Nevermind. It didn't say DEAD victim, did it? It just said victim in general. So we get blood from someone she's pranked."

Chris threatened to punch Wyatt. "So you want us to find one of her poor victims, and have them bleed all over a piece of wood for us? Yeah, that isn't happening."

"Noooo! I mean...why don't I be one of her victims? I don't mind bleeding on a piece of wood if it saves innocents. You won't be killing me or even hurting me too badly. You ARE a whitelighter as well as a witch, Chris, Melinda. As soon as I cut myself for enough blood, after having been somehow pranked by Raven, you can heal me. Easy. See? I can think up INTELLIGENT plans beyond 'stab it til it dies' or whatever." Wyatt glared at his siblings.

Chris and Melinda were forced to agree that this was the most likely, and least harmful to innocents, thing to do. "Okay. That will work. But it isn't just you. If she pranks ANY of us, we're the ones to bleed for it. It'll just be faster and more likely to succeed that way."

Everyone had agreed on it when they started heading to the House of Mirrors. They waited in line like normal patrons. Screaming teens and children were coming out the other end of the mirror house. Apparently they thought it was like a haunted house and Raven's pranks were merely part of the "ride".

Chris, Melinda, and Wyatt entered the house of mirrors when it was their turn. It was dark and lit only by shimmering strobe lights that flickered on and off. Melinda's heart started racing. She hated mirrors. REALLY hated them. There was an old folktale about witches and mirrors. Witches didn't like mirrors because they thought it took part of their soul. In here, there were dozens of mirrors.

A dozen Melindas shimmered in the strobe lights with the mirrors accentuating them. She looked as if she were dancing. She shivered. They'd better find the goddess, and fast, before she had a heart attack.

Chris and Wyatt were also feeling the same feelings of trepidation and nerves, but it didn't come from old folktales. It came from an inner sense that told them something wasn't right here.

Melinda spoke. "Lets split up. We'll find her faster that way." She realized she was whispering for some odd reason.

Chris and Wyatt gave her an odd look, but agreed. They headed down one path, leaving Melinda alone in the large, circular middle room. Dozens of mirrors. Dozens of Melinda. She almost screamed when a shadow crossed one of her reflections. She was here. The goddess. Melinda readied her orbing power. At least she could get out quickly if the goddess became nasty.

"Witch. You seek me, foolishly. What harm to your precious innocents have I done?" A woman with dishwater blonde hair and green eyes seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She was voluptuous and very attractive, even to Melinda, who was not attracted to women.

"Get...get away!" Melinda stammered. It wasn't the goddess she was afraid, not really. It was the mirrors. Her mirror phobia was not helping the situation.

Raven walked softly across the floor, footfalls making no sound, her curves swaying, accentuated by the scintillating strobe lights and dozens of mirrors. She reached for Melinda and tilted her head back. "You're lovely. Even with the flaming red hair. I think I prefer your natural colors..." The Raven smiled again, ran a hand through Melinda's hair.

Red dye dripped down Melinda's face, streaking her clothing with the color of blood. Melinda reached up and pulled a strand of hair around, realizing it had turned back to its natural light brown.

"So beautiful...daughter of a Charmed One...Twice Blessed Child...woman..." Raven placed her hands on Melinda's cheeks, tracing the lines of her face with her delicate fingers. She tilted Melinda's head back and kissed her passionately.

Melinda struggled, eventually pulling free of Raven's embrace. The goddess smiled, ran a hand over her blood red lips, licked the finger. "You taste delightful...Melinda. Perhaps I should pay your brothers a visit now."

"Where...where did the door go! What...you trapped me here! How do I get out!" She ran toward the Raven.

The goddess turned, blonde hair trailing over her shoulders and nearly bare breasts. She smiled again, this time a wicked smile.

"You see these reflections? You hate mirrors oh-so-badly..." Raven laughed again. "You can get out when you find the one that's real."

Raven vanished, leaving Melinda alone with the dozens of reflections. She spun around, looking at the mirrors. Dozens of Melindas spun with her. When you find the one that's real...Melinda thought. A riddle. It was nothing more than a headtrick. Melinda smiled. Dozens of Melindas in the mirrors smiled with her. She looked down at her own body, clothing soaked, looking bloody from the dye Raven had removed. "This one is real." She put her hand to her chest.

The house of mirrors faded around Melinda and she found herself back behind the outhouses. She let out a heaving sigh of relief. Mirrors terrified her. At least, THAT many did. Shimmering violet-pink light brought her attention back to the present. Her cousin Prue had beamed in next to her. Prue was half witch, half cupid. That was why the pink light.

"What happened Melinda? Why are you covered in blood? Ohmigoddess! That demon hurt you! I can't heal! Wyatt! CHRIS!" Prue seemed to be having a freakout when Melinda grabbed her and pulled her down.

"I'm not hurt! Its my hair dye. The trickster goddess caused my dye to bleed away and then she..." Melinda trailed off, not mentioning the kiss to her cousin. "Nevermind, but she played a trick on me where I had to find a way out of a locked mirror room and the only way out was to find the real Melinda. It was a riddle. THIS is the real Melinda. ME. It didn't take me long at all to figure it out."

Prue nodded. "You have your mother's cool logic. But the boys...they might not be so lucky. We...we have to go back in. To save Chris and Wyatt."

Melinda drew a dagger shakily from her boot and pulled a sharp stick from inside her jacket. She slid the dagger down her arm. Blood seeped from the wound. She held the piece of wood to the wound. Her blood slowly coated the stake. Melinda tried very hard to ignore the pain. Without Chris or Wyatt, she'd have to deal with it until they could heal her. She was incapable of healing herself.

Prue was looking at her in confusion.

"A...stake covered in the blood of a trickster's victim will banish it. Take the stake in the house of mirros. Get rid of her before she's able to trap Chris and Wyatt."

"I can't leave you here bleeding like this!"

"It will only be until you've banished the trickster! The goddess will likely hurt them. She didn't seem nice or friendly, or even funny. Raven...I'm starting to wonder if I guessed the right trickster god. She was certainly female, but she was far too malevolent to be the good goddess Raven."

Prue nodded uncertainly, but took the stake coated in Melinda's now-drying blood. She leaned down and hugged her elder cousin. "Be safe, Melinda. I'll be back in no time." In a flash of violet-pink light, Prue had beamed away.

Back in the maze, Chris and Wyatt were understandably lost. And arguing. Which was doing neither of them any good.

"God, we wouldn't even be in this position if it weren't for your pathetic excuse for witch powers!"

"MY pathetic excuse? You're supposed to be the most powerful witch in the world, and you couldn't handle ONE minor goddess!"

"Tsk tsk...boys...enough arguing...you wanted to find me. Here I am." A very attractive, nearly naked woman with blonde hair and green eyes had appeared in front of them. Strangely, she was not reflected in any of the mirrors, unlike Chris and Wyatt, who kept getting confused and walking into the mirrors or getting even further lost.

"You-you! Stop doing whatever it is you're doing! Or we'll...kill you!"

The woman laughed heartily. "Kill me? You can't kill me. Don't you know what a trickster is, fellas? We're immortal..." She smiled. "But you're not. I'm no demon, but I don't like you. Either of you. I like your sister though...Melinda...mm...she was tasty..."

Chris started forward at this, Wyatt held him back. "What do you mean? What did you do to her? If you hurt her, I swear I'll!"

The goddess wagged a finger at Wyatt. "You can't do anything to me. Even your precious Excalibur can't harm me."

"No, but THIS can." A woman's voice. Familiar. A bloody wooden stake was shoved forcibly through Raven's back. She gasped. Blood trickled out of the side of her mouth. She turned around and looked at the one who had shiv-ed her. Another woman. Another witch. She had underestimated them...Raven fell to the ground, the bloody stake apparently killing her.

"Prue! What are you doing here? Where is Melinda? Is she okay?"

"She's fine! Lets get out of here. She needs healing!" Prue grabbed old of Chris and Wyatt and beamed them back to Melinda, who was still sitting on the ground behind the outhouses. Chris rushed over to her, healing her sliced arm.

"What happened to you! You're bloody all over!"

"Its not blood. Raven...she just made my hair dye leak away, thats all."

Prue put her hands on her hips. "Lets just get out of here. We did away with the trickster goddess. She's dead. We're done. And we have to add that stake trick to the Book of Shadows. Melinda got it from some cheesy book she read, but it turned out to be real. Hey, you think the guy who wrote the book is a witch?"

Together, they orbed or beamed back to the manor.

In the house of mirrors, Raven's body shimmered, then vanished. She stepped out from behind a nearby mirror. She waved a hand. Her body changed back into its original male form, but kept the blonde hair and green eyes. The Trickster smiled. He wasn't done playing with these witches. They were fun. And attractive. He could still taste Melinda on his lips. He smiled wickedly at his many reflections. Stupid witches. It should have given him away when the mirrors didn't reflect him at all. It should have tipped them off that the thing they staked was a clone. Oh well. It was better this way.


End file.
